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The poor-rate was quite inadequate to support the burden thrown upon it
by the suspension of public works, but there was another claim upon it
which could not wait. When the elections were over and the Government
majority secure, the Treasury called on the poor-law guardians to levy
immediately a special rate for the repayment of a million and a quarter
lent by the State in a previous year. They were warned that, if they
refused, their boards would be dissolved and the rates levied by the
authority of the Commissioners. The guardians in many districts declared
that an additional rate could not be collected. All that could be got
would be too little to support the distressed class. But the Treasury
would listen to no excuse, and a dozen boards were dissolved and paid
guardians put in their place. The Treasury had lent seven millions
sterling in 1846; five millions of it had been spent in making roads
which were not needed nor desired, and one million was diverted from the
wages fund to purchase land for this experiment.


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